Massive Explosion on the Sun Caught on Video

For most of us down here on earth, June 7th was a fairly typical day. If you happened to be on the sun, on the other hand, you would have been treated to one of the most massive solar explosions man has ever seen. It may not look all that big in the video — the footage was captured on an ultraviolet camera by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory — but remember, this is the sun we’re looking at here. It’s more than 100 times larger than the Earth.

The explosion, called a coronal mass ejection, was part of a three hour solar storm that occurred last Thursday night. In addition to its size, the ejection was also notable because the plasma returned to the sun’s surface rather than hurtling into space, which is typical of these events. This was a truly landmark event for scientists, one which will certainly lead to just as many questions as it does answers.